Gangwon 2024 Winter YOG: Great Britain's youngest ice hockey player ready to make memories
Kingston McKenzie is the youngest of 11 players named to Team GB's Gangwon 2024 ice hockey 3-on-3 team.
Ice Hockey
Ice hockey and Great Britain are not exactly synonymous.
Yes, the country may have won Olympic gold in the sport in 1936, but in a country where curling dominates the winter sport landscape, ice hockey is not high on the list.
So the fact a British team will play in the men's 3-on-3 ice hockey competition at the Winter Youth Olympic Games Gangwon 2024 is a big step in the development of the sport in the country.
And helping write the next chapter for British ice hockey is the youngest member of the 11-strong playing squad, Kingston McKenzie.
The 14-year-old told the BBC's local news programme East Midlands Today: "Dream come true, really, couldn't really explain [my feelings].
"It means a lot, it means the whole world to me. To be given this opportunity to play for GB in the Youth Olympic Games is something special."
GB Youth Olympic head coach Danny Meyers, who played 59 times for the senior national team in a storied playing career which saw him win multiple honours with the Nottingham Panthers, played a crucial role in McKenzie's eventual selection.
"Danny Meyers sent me an email saying you've been invited to trial," the teenager recalled. "And it's kept going and I've kept pushing myself.
"It's been really difficult, there's been really good players, 11 players. To squeeze into that has been pretty incredible."
Meyers told BBC Radio Nottingham: "What I really have enjoyed about this whole journey, especially with this [under] 16s teams, is being able to talk about GB and what it meant to me.
"[Telling them] 'You guys are right at the start of this amazing journey, potentially representing GB for a long, long time.' Those experiences I had playing for the GB juniors and the senior team, they really mean a lot to me.
"I just get excited for what this can do for the players and what it can mean to them - they're right on the brink of what is going to be a very exciting future ahead of them."
Three-on-three hockey is played cross-ice in the end zone of a regular rink, rather than on a full sheet of ice.
The 3-on-3 tournaments will feature eight men's and eight women's teams in single round-robin groups. The top four teams will reach the semi-finals, with Team GB alongside Austria, People's Republic of China, Denmark, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Poland, and Spain in the men's tournament.